Living in a memory lane
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Kashmir conflict-revisited
In early1980s, walking through the lush green fields, on crisp spring and summer mornings, on my way from the student hostel to the chemis...
Thursday, August 5, 2021
Tyrants in history
Friday, April 23, 2021
Death at the dance of insanity
Tuesday, March 23, 2021
Indulgences of liberals
Many tears have been shed at Pratap Bhanu Mehta's resignation from a so-called Indian ivy-league university in the past week or so. This morning in his weekly column for the Dawn, Jawed Naqvi had eluded a survey in the Caravan magazine on the clique of so-called liberal Indo-US academics who smoothened the edges for Modi in his run-up to power in Delhi through their approbative indulgences on Modi in the waning days of the UPA government.
Pratap Bhanu Mehta was among those who thought that Modi's role in the 2002 pogroms in Gujarat was irrelevant to his natural place as the leader of the Indian nation. Then he was not alone in drooling at the prospect of Modi assuming the mantel. Shashi Tharoor, who couldn't do a day's proper job in the UPA government, would simply not shut up from singing paeans for Modi. Coming back to Pratap Bhanu Mehta and his brilliance, it is hard to think that he would be too small to remember Modi's role in creating and presiding over that mayhem in early spring of 2002.
Modi's then demeanor was best described by Arundhati Roy as “the then chief minister of Gujarat appeared on TV in a saffron Kurta with a slash of vermilion on his forehead, and with cold, dead eyes ordered the burnt bodies of Hindu pilgrims be brought to Ahmedabad, the capital of the state, where they were put on display for the general public to pay their respect.” Then there was that phone call where Ahsan Jaffri tried to plead for help before Modi's goons put an end to the life of Jaffri and those who had come to seek shelter considering his stature as a politician.
But for Pratap Bhanu Mehta and his liberal friends, it was time to consider Modi's past digressions as minor aberrations to be overlooked for the presumed good days ahead. Only if Pratap Bhanu Mehta had cared to listen to those chilling audios from the days of the 2002 riots with Modi taunting the hapless victims rendered homeless by his henchmen. Or, for that matter, didn't Modi run his government thereafter as an extortionist racket? Those murders of Ishrat Jahan, Hiren Pandya, or his henchman Amit Shah being charged and arrested as a home minister under Modi.
The world has had many times rulers that turned out to be dastardly murderous, but examples of murderers being promoted as rulers by so-called intelligentsia are not many. Don't shed tears for people who expedited the advent of Modi to power. They share the blame for the mayhem that has happened ever since. -Rajiv Kumar
Sunday, February 21, 2021
Universe
Saturday, February 20, 2021
Galactic scales
The solar system completes one revolution around the center of the Milky Way in 230 million years and that's called one galactic year. And according to that scale:
The universe originated 60 galactic years ago, 14 galactic hours after that the universe became transparent with the release of cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB).
Galaxies started forming 58 galactic years ago. Sun formed 22 galactic years ago and the earth 20 galactic years ago and the moon 160 galactic days after that.
Life on the earth started 15 galactic years ago, photosynthesis 14 galactic years ago, nucleus formation in living cells 11 galactic years ago, multicellular organisms 3 galactic years ago, plants on the land 2 galactic years ago, animals 1.5 galactic years ago, and dinosaurs went extinct 103 galactic days ago.
Modern humans evolved 7.5 galactic hours ago, human civilization started 27 galactic minutes ago, and an average human life is 12 galactic seconds.
Four galactic years from now the sun will be too hot to boil oceans and 22 galactic years from now it will have expanded to engulf the earth erasing the traces of any existence on the planet.
Wednesday, January 20, 2021
A derelict presidency ends in disgrace
Thursday, December 31, 2020
The year of the virus and absurdity
The year 2020 in history will always be synonymous with the pandemic that engulfed the entire world. From its humble beginnings in a market in Wuhan, the sub-microscopic virus ended up humbling the mighty of the world. It exposed the troughs and crests of human race. Scientific ingenuity to tackle the virus contrasted with basic destructive obscurantist instincts of the same human species. The virus did not drop out of a vacuum; a thoughtful few had been warning of impending catastrophes from viruses and bacteria. They did not worry about a nuclear holocaust or a meteor hurtling down from the sky. The disasters visiting humanity through plagues are more regular than those rare if not improbable events; the virus took over the world and defined everything in it.
Despite the virus or rather in many ways because of it, the voters in the United States rejected one of vilest person ever to occupy the presidential office. The election of Donald Trump as the US president will be a stain for that country to carry forever leaving it with weaker foundations than before that manipulative narcissist managed a hostile takeover to hollow out the hallowed institutions of the government. It was his response or rather non-response to the pandemic that he willfully allowed to ravage the entire country finally undid him. At least some consolation. Another four years of that racist charlatan would have certainly catastrophized the world. Good riddance for now.
On the other side of the globe, the virus besides creating havoc might have actually slowed another narcissistic from carrying out to culmination the process of Muslim disenfranchisement in India. Modi was all set to send undocumented Muslims in India to detention centers until the virus intervened. Nevertheless, he made up for that by having, cruelty and inhumanity visit the most vulnerable poor wretches of India as a way to dealing with the coronavirus in a complete disconnect with the reality. Then such people would not be megalomaniacs otherwise. The true absurdity was the manner Indians responded to his comic stupidity that now has crept into his appearance.
Americans did get rid to Trump in 2020, if Indians could perform a similar feat in 2050 that would still merit a commendation.
Until then a Happy 2021. The 2020 was for stoics.